{"id":5234,"date":"2025-01-13T16:42:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T05:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2025\/01\/13\/soldersmoke-podcast-256-hny-skn-la-fires-barkhausen-southern-cross-homebrew-vs-kits-an762-kit-woe-beacon-arrl-kids-sdr-build-dc-rx-videos-pete-hacked-power-alternatives-kwm4-mailbag\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:00:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T08:00:59","slug":"soldersmoke-podcast-256-hny-skn-la-fires-barkhausen-southern-cross-homebrew-vs-kits-an762-kit-woe-beacon-arrl-kids-sdr-build-dc-rx-videos-pete-hacked-power-alternatives-kwm4-mailbag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2025\/01\/13\/soldersmoke-podcast-256-hny-skn-la-fires-barkhausen-southern-cross-homebrew-vs-kits-an762-kit-woe-beacon-arrl-kids-sdr-build-dc-rx-videos-pete-hacked-power-alternatives-kwm4-mailbag\/","title":{"rendered":"SolderSmoke Podcast #256: HNY SKN, LA Fires, Barkhausen! Southern Cross, Homebrew vs. Kits, AN762 Kit, Woe, Beacon, ARRL Kids, SDR Build, DC RX videos, Pete Hacked! Power alternatives, KWM4, Mailbag"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n
A Tale of Woe! <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
SolderSmoke Podcast #256 is available: <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Audio: https:\/\/soldersmoke.com\/soldersmoke256.mp3<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Video: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NYuEhljOtAQ<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n


<\/b><\/p>\n

Travelouge<\/b>: From the DR. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Happy New Year! <\/p>\n

Fires in LA. <\/p>\n

Dean: Breaking the Barkhausen criteria. <\/p>\n

Seeing the Southern Cross<\/a> for the first time in 30 years. <\/p>\n

For all three of us: The SolderSmoke Homebrew Challenge. And assembling a kit. https:\/\/soldersmoke.blogspot.com\/2025\/01\/some-history-of-homebrew-ham-radio-from.html<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/soldersmoke.blogspot.com\/2025\/01\/the-magic-that-only-comes-from-radio.html<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/soldersmoke.blogspot.com\/2025\/01\/steve-g0fuw-talks-homebrew-and-kits.html<\/a><\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

Bill’s (Southern) Bench: <\/b><\/p>\n

— SKN with QCX <\/a>given to me by Bob. Thanks Bob! <\/p>\n

— Finishing up the AN762 .1kW amplifier. Socketry and relays. Working well.<\/a> <\/p>\n

— A tale of woe<\/a>: Some difficult troubleshooting on the 15-10 rig. Intermittent oscillation. Naturally I blamed the TJ DC RX AF amp. Spent a lot of time working on that amplifier. But problem always returned. Started looking at output from carrier osc\/BFO. Waveform weird. Then weirdness disappeared and so did the whooping. So I rebuilt the entire carrier osc\/BFO\/ mixer board. Went back to singly balanced 2 diode mixer. Used LTSpice for the oscillator amp.. No more whooping. Turning the diodes on and off but not quite 7 dbm… Should I be concerned? <\/p>\n

— A 10 meter beacon! 28.233 Please listen. Send e-mail reports. <\/a> Thanks to WN2A. <\/p>\n

— Antenna thoughts. Getting a tripod. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
The HI7\/N2CQR 10 meter Beacon<\/span><\/div>\n

_______________________________<\/p>\n

SHAMELESS COMMERCE! <\/b> Mostly DIY RF! Lots of useful kits and boards there. I have used their TIA boards. Todd K7TFC is one of us. FB store. <\/p>\n

Become a SolderSmoke patron. We need the help. Homebrew is under seige! We are one of the few sites, blogs, podcasts that are promoting it! Help us! <\/p>\n

Buy stuff from Amazon and E-bay using the links on our sites. <\/p>\n

————————————————<\/p>\n

Dean’s Bench:<\/b> <\/p>\n

— ARRL kids day — Exhausting.<\/p>\n

— VWS Makers SDR receiver build. <\/p>\n

— High School DC RX Build news. How to watch the videos. <\/p>\n

_______________________________<\/p>\n

Pete’s Bench:<\/b> <\/p>\n

— Hacked! <\/p>\n

— Power Alternatives. <\/p>\n

— Thermatron Finals<\/p>\n

— KWM-4. <\/p>\n

__________________________<\/p>\n

Mailbag<\/b><\/p>\n

Dave Newkirk W9BRD (son of Rod). Great comments on homebrew radio. And a great picture.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Derek N9TD built the DC Receiver<\/a>. FB Derek! <\/p>\n

Peter VK2EMU at 39C in Australia. HOT! <\/p>\n

Drew N7DA — Some great comments on kits vs. homebrew. <\/p>\n

Tommy SA2CLC has a nice video about fixing the cavity resonator in his HP8640<\/a>. Respect! <\/p>\n

Ben KC9DLM sent good presentation from India: https:\/\/github.com\/kholia\/talks\/blob\/master\/Dhiru_My_RF_Homebrew_Adventures.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Scott KQ4AOP and Derek N9TD offering to 3D Print PTO coil forms. FB! <\/p>\n

Donnie WA9TGT <\/a>on the beautiful signals from DC receivers. <\/p>\n

Chuck KE5HPY’s FB Altoids DC receiver<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Todd VE7BPO: POPCORN ELECTRONICS IS BACK<\/a>! Thanks Todd. And thanks Vasily! <\/p>\n

Jim KA4THC has his uBITX on the air and is making contacts! <\/p>\n

Farhan VU2ESE fond memories of homebrew dinner with Wes and other HB Heroes <\/a>(on the blog). <\/p>\n

Charlie ZL2CTM — About his new Pelican Case SSB rig. <\/p>\n

Walter KA4KXX. All new hams should build a transmitter. <\/p>\n

Buzz W3EMD A nice QSO on 10 and then a shout out to the Old Military Radio Net<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Stations that heard my beacon and reported to RBN<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Tale of Woe! SolderSmoke Podcast #256 is available: Audio: https:\/\/soldersmoke.com\/soldersmoke256.mp3 Video: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NYuEhljOtAQ Travelouge: From the DR. Happy New Year! Fires in LA. Dean: Breaking the Barkhausen criteria. Seeing the Southern Cross for the first time in 30 years. For all three of us: The SolderSmoke Homebrew Challenge. And assembling a kit. https:\/\/soldersmoke.blogspot.com\/2025\/01\/some-history-of-homebrew-ham-radio-from.html https:\/\/soldersmoke.blogspot.com\/2025\/01\/the-magic-that-only-comes-from-radio.html https:\/\/soldersmoke.blogspot.com\/2025\/01\/steve-g0fuw-talks-homebrew-and-kits.html … Continue reading “SolderSmoke Podcast #256: HNY SKN, LA Fires, Barkhausen! Southern Cross, Homebrew vs. Kits, AN762 Kit, Woe, Beacon, ARRL Kids, SDR Build, DC RX videos, Pete Hacked! Power alternatives, KWM4, Mailbag”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,123,114,19,263,41,159,40,49,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-10-meters","category-15-10-transceiver","category-beacon","category-dominican-republic","category-harris-frank","category-juliano-pete","category-reverse-beacon-network","category-sdr","category-soldersmoke-podcast","category-troubleshooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5238,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions\/5238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}